In Some Ways a Family
by Mirror and Image
Summary: [Complete] Kanan and newly recruited Sabine get a little closer while sneaking past stormtroopers. Rated for Sabine's idea that swearing somehow makes her look like an adult.


**In Some Ways a Family**

Mirror and Image

Kanan was supposed to be on shift, and he was on his way to the cockpit to do so. But as he walked through the common room, he saw something that had him both intensely frustrated and instantly on edge.

It was their newest crewmate, Sabine, sitting on the floor with components and chemicals splayed out in front of her as she carefully measured micrograms of some of the most dangerous explosives in the known galaxy.

" _Sabine_!" Kanan hissed, stalking over. "You do _not_ mix explosives while we're in deep space!"

The young Mandalorian, only healed from when Kanan had found her almost dead for maybe a month, was immediately defensive. "Hey, I _know_ what I'm doing! I'm careful! That's why you have me on this crew, because of my expertise! Are you _questioning_ that now?"

"It's not about trusting you!" Kanan shot back. "We're in _deep space_! What happens if—"

"Don't give me what ifs! I'm careful! I'm more than competent! I-"

"This isn't about _you_!" Kanan roared back. "We're in deep space. If the Empire, or some hotshot bounty hunter, or smuggler decides to open fire on us, you won't be able to catch all of that before we're shaking and scrambling! What then, you leave it all here to be knocked over by someone running to the _Phantom_? Or in your room where any vibration from a blaster shot will knock it over? You _don't_ mix explosives when we're in space!"

Sabine's face was getting red, but she refused to back down. "You're not my _father_ , you aren't the _Empire_! You can't tell me what to do!"

Kanan narrowed his eyes, glaring and Sabine's eye twitched to the briefest of winces but didn't look away or back down.

"Then you won't have access to any explosives at all while we're in space," he said heavily. He immediately knelt down and started capping and scooping up everything that was splayed in front of her.

"What?! You can't _do_ that!" she screamed, scrambling to grab her precious explosives. But Kanan was too fast for her, easily tripped her and kept her from grabbing anything. He eventually just untucked his sweater, using it as a half bag, to put all the sealed explosives into and headed to Sabine's room to look for more. "That's _my_ room! You are _not_ allowed in there!" she screamed after him, trailing along and trying to get ahead so that she could lock the door.

The problem was that Sabine was just hitting her growth spurt, her balance and lankiness working against her, and Kanan was far, _far_ more experienced at combat, even at her age, to let her get by. He entered her room first, and immediately went to all the hiding spots.

Sabine kept screaming and yanking and trying to do anything other than have her precious explosives taken away, tears of frustration starting to stream down her cheeks. Kanan ignored all of it, getting even more of Sabine's explosive stores and loading them into his sweater-turned-bag. Pausing, he watched Sabine's face, saw her eyes flick to the ceiling, and reached up to pull down the grating and get more of her chemicals.

"Don't even get me started on leaving dangerous chemicals and explosives in the air vents," he said firmly. "You won't get anything until we're planet-side somewhere, and you'll be giving it right back when we go into space again. You will keep doing so until we understand that you get the lesson," he said firmly.

"Oh, it's _we_ is it?" Sabine growled harshly. "I guess it's true! You fuck a Twi'lek and they'll do whatever you say! Aren't you lucky she's the captain!"

Kanan froze, sucked in a sharp breath, and _worked_ to let it out slowly. He reminded himself strongly that Sabine had just come off of some sort of betrayal, she held a massive grudge against the Empire for reasons she refused to say, and was still emotionally raw and lashing out at anything she could.

"Oooooh," Sabine mocked, "did I touch a nerve? Do you think yourself some sort of ladies man that can fuck anything that moves? Or are you so pathetic that you're just happy a Twi'lek that can fuck anyone chose you?"

Kanan turned sharply, reminding himself firmly that he had an armload of explosives and that striking a fourteen-year-old girl who was struggling after so much pain wouldn't help the situation. But he was _angry_. _Furious_.

"You know what Sabine," he said quietly, far quieter than the confrontation in the common room, "you can say whatever the kriff you want about me. I don't give a damn. That's your anger talking and I know it. But you do _not_ say anything like that about _Hera_. _Ever_. You are staying in your room and thinking about everything your anger and pain and grudges just made you say to the people who _saved your life_." And he calmly walked out, shut the door behind him, and overrode the locking mechanism to keep her grounded in there.

"You can't _do_ this!" Sabine screamed from the other side, slamming on the door.

Kanan stood still, eyes closed, and let out a shaky breath. Then another. He had to release the anger. Acknowledge that Sabine had hurt him in a terrible way, understand she was reacting to her own pain, and let go.

It was damn hard to let go.

He took another deep breath and looked up. Hera was there, her door open. She glanced at all the explosives and gave a silent nod of approval. A quick gesture and Kanan nodded, taking heavy steps to his room to make it sound like he was hiding it all in there, then stepped on silent feet to Hera's room.

"I'll hide those," she said softly, even though Sabine was still screaming and pounding at the door.

"Thanks," Kanan rasped, carefully pulling out one canister and casing at a time. He was still _furious_ , and he took another deep breath. "I'll go take my shift now."

Hera, already hiding the chemicals and explosives in her room, looked at him. "Dear, I think we need to talk. Or rather, _you_ need to talk. You were a little scary there at the end."

"I've never been that angry before."

To that, Hera actually raised her brows. "Never angry?"

"Oh I've been irritated and exasperated. Especially with Chopper, but angry? Not for a long, long time. I gave that up when I gave up my heritage. If I dwelled too long in anger, I knew it would destroy me. Better to just float from one self-destructive path to a different one where it was only me who'd be hurt, rather than everyone around me."

"All the more reason to talk," Hera said gently as he handed her a bomb casing.

Kanan nodded. "Yes, but not now. I need to meditate. Work on letting this go. I'm worried I'll snap at you next."

Hera gave her usual, amused grin. "Somehow I doubt you could take me if it came to such sparring."

Kanan gave a wan smile that he didn't really feel. Hera always had the upper hand on him. She was _Hera_. But the rare times he could tease her were always treasured and milked. He was in no frame of mind to even try teasing. "I _need_ to meditate," he repeated, deliberately catching her eye.

Hera's smile slipped away and she nodded. "Your punishment for Sabine will stand," she said instead. "Explosives need to be mixed and handled on planet, not space. And until she proves herself, she won't control the explosives alone at all. I'll give her some time to scream herself out and think, then I'll talk to her. I agree she needs to stay in her room at least till we get to the next port."

He nodded, rubbing his eyes. "We may want to keep her from missions if she's going to be so reckless, but that might do more harm than good. We'll have to talk later when I'm more clear headed."

Hera nodded, then yawned.

"Tell you what," Kanan offered. "Get some sleep first. Let her stew for a few hours so that you won't be so exhausted. _Then_ talk to her."

"An excellent idea, but no guarantees."

Kanan nodded. Hera didn't like to go to sleep when someone was still angry. So instead, he helped her put away the last of Sabine's toys and headed to the cockpit, where he was supposed to be an hour ago.

To say Chopper was also irritated and grumbling would be an understatement.

"I know, Chop," Kanan said tiredly, patting the old astromech's top. Chopper immediately pulled away, manipulators out. "Sabine just nearly blew us up and she's under lockdown for a while. I'll enter it to the ship's log. You just go and recharge. You've had to keep watch for too long while I dealt with all of that."

Chopper still gave some highly creative cursing in fractal _and_ hexadecimal, before rolling out.

He sat down in the co-pilot's seat, let out another long breath, checked over readings and trajectories, before settling back in his chair and closing his eyes.

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Rest. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Rest.

In. Hold. Out. Rest.

When Kanan had joined Hera, he reflected, they had both been adults. They had both already been around the galaxy, perhaps Kanan more than Hera, and they both understood that working together meant getting used to routines, habits, and patterns. They had both talked about how they did things, argued when certain rough patches were exposed, but they handled it like adults. Working with Chopper had taken perhaps the most from Kanan ever in getting along with someone. And while the grumpy droid refused to make it easy, he and Kanan were both in an understanding. They would both die to protect Hera, and that made working together a fair bit easier.

Zeb had also been an adult when Kanan had found him in a bar room brawl. Older than both Hera and Kanan, and they all understood that working together, adding a new gear to their smooth operation, was going to need fine tuning and finessing. Yes, there was grinding, times the gears didn't line up or were askew. But Zeb, who had suffered such a great loss when he was in charge of the Honor Guard, was happy to take direction and mostly follow everyone's lead. He didn't want that responsibility again and was happy to be incredibly immature, particularly with Chopper.

Sabine was, naturally, entirely different.

Finally back on her feet, after Kanan had found her, nursing two large grudges, a lot of anger and hate, and only fourteen. With that much on her, Kanan understood her need to establish her independence and self-reliance. At this point, she was viewing that as critical to her self-image. But she was reckless in going about it. Her desire to prove herself was pushing her to take unnecessary risks. Just to prove to herself that she could.

In. Hold. Out. Rest.

But no one, not Kanan, not Zeb, not Hera, _no one_ , could allow her to go around unchecked. She needed to understand boundaries. She didn't want any and was going to keep pushing, so Kanan and Hera, First Mate and Captain, needed to lower the hammer to enforce to boundaries that kept her safe. Like not mixing dangerous chemicals in space.

 _Force_ , he suddenly felt old. How did the Masters handle padawans at that age? How did Master Depa?

Well, he chuckled to himself, he had been a different sort of annoyance compared to Sabine.

So Kanan thought instead about what they knew of Sabine, what they could piece together in order to see something else that might be able to show Sabine that, yes they did trust her, but even with trust there were boundaries that one stayed within.

Good thing he'd be on watch for several hours.

Kanan was just finishing updating the log when Zeb came in, rubbing his head, and looking around cautiously.

"Hey, Zeb," Kanan greeted, not looking up from his screen.

"Um, yeah, hey, Kanan." Zeb's returned greeting was hesitant, and Kanan looked up, glancing at the tall Lasat and noting the hand rubbing the back of his head.

"What's wrong?"

"Yeah," Zeb rumbled, "it was kinda hard not to hear all the yelling before."

Kanan had the decency to look abashed and glanced away. "Ahhh, sorry that got so loud. We probably woke you."

"No, no," Zeb shook his head, taking the seat behind Hera's. "It's fine. She needed the talking to, and you were right to take her stuff away if she couldn't follow basic protocol that _anyone_ with training understands." The Lasat was rubbing his hands together nervously. "Locking her down was the right call. She completely deserved it. Yeah..."

Kanan raised a brow. "Zeb?" he questioned.

"Ahhhh."

"Zeeeb?" Kanan let a hint of growl.

"Yeah," Zeb cleared his throat, pulling at his collar. "Well. Um... That is. She and Chopper are having a bit of a coding war."

"A _what_?"

"Well, Sabine keeps trying to slice an override on your override and Chopper is slicing right back and now they're trying to out-slice one another..."

Kanan just dropped his head into his hands and let out a very long, very tired sigh.

"Hera?" he asked.

"Still in her bunk."

Hopefully sleeping. She'd been pushing lately, and it had been catching up with her. It was why he had volunteered for this shift in the first place. "Right. You take watch."

Zeb let out a relieved smile and saluted sloppily.

Kanan walked back to the common room, and watched Chopper at the dataport. The little droid was completely unrepentant and utterly ignored Kanan, which Kanan had been counting on. He instead watched the datastream.

Hmmm. Sabine might be a better slicer than Chopper, though it was too close to tell.

Still, if she was doing this, she clearly wasn't thinking about what the argument had been about in the first place and if she _did_ get past Chopper, there was no telling what she could do to the systems of the ship. So Kanan let out another heavy sigh, one of far too many he'd been doing lately, and pulled apart a panel and shifted underneath. He studied the wiring closely, then nodded to himself. Cross a few wires here, and remove one very important wire there. Done.

Chopper immediately started complaining that he was no longer getting a challenge! Kanan pocketed the wire. Now the only power in Sabine's room went to lights and life-support. She wouldn't be able to access anything else.

The astromech was still shouting, and rolling up with an electrical prod to make his point, when Kanan instead reached over and patted the droid's top. "I know that was fun, Chopper. But you really need to recharge your power cells. You've been running longer than Hera and even she's decided to get some sleep. You've proven you're the better slicer-" for now "-so take some well earned rest."

Chopper gave a rude sound but rolled away.

Kanan sighed. Sometimes he hated being responsible.

* * *

Hera woke after her power nap and needed only a moment to remember the shouting match between Kanan and their newest recruit.

And remember what Sabine had said.

The Twi'lek took her time stepping out of her cabin, ignoring Sabine's locked room and instead moving to the galley for a quick cup of caf. Kanan was already there, getting a cup himself and wordlessly slid over one for her, ever thoughtful.

Ah, his caf was always so good.

"Talk to our little rebel yet?" she asked.

"Had to cut the power to her room before she – or Chopper – overrode the entire ship's subroutines. Screaming stopped about an hour into your nap after that."

Hera winced, rubbing her forehead.

"Exactly one thing she said was right," Kanan said, eyes lidded as he took a slow, deep breath through his nose. He wasn't oozing emotion anymore, he was still and calm. The meditation must have helped. "We are lucky that you're the captain."

Hera snorted. "Is that what you're taking away from that fight?"

Kanan made a face, his serenity immediately broken. "It's the one that's keeping me from throwing her out the airlock," he admitted, a little trite. "I get that she's hurting, and a teenager, and isn't shy about using whatever she can think of as a weapon, but..."

Kanan could never shrug things like this off. Slurs to Hera were a personal affront to him and – while he made a point of never interfering with her handling of those situations – he never felt _good_ about it. Hera found that sweet, but more-so she respected him for letting her have the decision on what was worth picking a fight over and what wasn't. She put a hand on his shoulder, acknowledgement of his feelings. "I'll talk to her," she said. "We can't let language like that become prevalent on this ship. Imagine what kind of things Zeb would pick up?"

Kanan snorted.

Hera sipped her caf and checked in with the cockpit first. Zeb was there and gave her an uneasy look, ears back and slightly drooped. "Hera..." he started to say.

"It's nothing I haven't heard a hundred times before," she said easily. "And worse," she added under her breath.

"Well, I just wanted you to know, I never thought any of that," the Lasat said carefully. "Ran with a Twi'lek before Kanan found me. Good fighter he was. Told me some stories, when he'd had too much to drink. Stuff of nightmares."

"Oh," Hera said dryly. "Then he only told you the good stories."

That was shallow, she admitted to herself, and Zeb didn't deserve that, but she didn't know how to press the point that very few beings understood the Twi'lek plight, because so much of what beings learned was coded. Sabine had been less than subtle, of course, but even something as simple as praising Hera for being modest had entire dictionaries of subtext that many often didn't even realize were _ist_ , the Twi'lek word for hateful. Even Zeb occasionally said something without meaning to that was cutting. Kanan usually stepped in with a joke or a pun that turned it around, but Hera couldn't have the patience for the Lasat when her mind was working on how to talk to Sabine.

She rubbed her forehead again and sipped her caf, sitting in the pilot seat long enough to check the readouts. The Imperial star destroyers were in range, the reason they'd left hyperspace so early on approach, and everything else met expectations. Visual confirmation would be in an hour or so, hopefully that would be enough to put the Mandelorian's head on straight.

Mentally bracing herself for what was to come, she stood and left the cockpit. She heard Zeb offer a muted, "Good luck," and moved down the hall to her target. The wire Kanan had disconnected was considerately left on the lock panel, and Hera rewired and then opened the door.

Sabine was sitting on her bed, knees up and staring at nothing, the picture of teenage angst. Angry reds and oranges littered one of her walls: broad, aggressive strokes and the air was full of the scent of paint. Brown eyes glanced up through thick bangs, guarded and apathetic.

Hera put on the lightest voice she could muster. "Feel like talking to the Twi'lek who will obey whoever she's fucking?" she asked. Sabine winced, but Hera added, "You know, the one who's low enough that she'd fuck someone as pathetic as Kanan?"

"I'm sorry," Sabine mumbled into her knees. "I didn't mean it."

"Oh?" Hera said, still keeping her voice light. She stayed standing, needed height for authority, needed to look down on Sabine in disapproval. She didn't trust the crew yet, and until then Hera had to use more rudimentary means to get her point across. "Which part? The one where you think Twi'leks are only good for fucking? Or the part that all Twi'leks are sex slaves? Or maybe the part where you thought I was more pathetic than Kanan? What about the part-"

"I said I was sorry!" Sabine growled, used to using anger as a defense mechanism. Hera was beyond that, though. Figuring out Sabine was like reading elementary books in Basic compared to when she was first figuring out Kanan. She saw past the anger to the hurt. That would be addressed soon, but first the wall needed to be broken down.

"Maybe sorry," Hera said. The levity in her voice was gone now, and she kept her eyes cold. "But you meant every word you said about me."

"No I didn't!"

Hera breathed in audibly through her nose, letting the weight of her sigh fill Sabine with dread.

"People confess truths when they're angry," she said. "And just so you know, it was Kanan who taught me that. Whether you know it or not, whether you understand it or not, you believe everything you said last night."

"I just said I _didn't_!" Sabine said, frustration mixed with anger on the tip of her tongue.

"What's the most common profession for a female Twi'lek?" Hera asked pointedly.

Sabine glared at her, smart enough to know it was a trick question but unwilling to bow to it. She didn't answer, but Hera could see the thought on her mind.

"Herders," Hera replied, seeing but not acknowledging the look of surprise on the Mandelorian's face. "After that, farmers, after that, mothers. On Ryloth the women look after the babies until they've teethed, and then the men take over so we can go back to feeding our people. It's a fifty-fifty gender split in our government – more than even the Republic back in the day. We dance at all our major celebrations and ceremonies, we make medicine, we teach at universities – or we used to – we even," she says with a cold smile, "pilot ships."

Sabine winced again, trying to curl further into herself. Hera wouldn't let the girl hide, and finally she moved. Bending down she grabbed Sabine's arm and hoisted, forcing the girl to her feet and dragging the sullen child to the Twi'lek's cabin, palming the door and sitting her down. Hera opened a recess under her bunk and pulled out a string of beads. "Do you know what these are?"

The Mandelorian frowned, reaching out to take the string but Hera held it back, unwilling to let her touch something so precious.

"They didn't teach a lot about substandard cultures at the Academy," she murmured, unaware of how hurtful her words just were. "I assume it's for some kind of ceremony?"

"No," Hera said. "Each bead is for someone who was lost in my clan."

The words sank in slowly, Sabine's slanted eyes widening as she started to look more carefully, counting.

"Some died in the war," Hera explained. "Some through old age. But most, over half, are missing. Lost somewhere in the Empire to do whatever their masters tell them. Tell me, Sabine, could you do it? Could you bend over for your lord, strip for your lord, suck and swallow, take the pain without complaint, and then beg for more because he told you to?"

The girl was looking at Hera with horror, her lips pursing and throat bobbing with a gulp. "Hera..." she started to say.

"Next time we break out slaves," Hera said, "You can play the slave princess. We'll make you show as much skin as possible, those toned thighs and shapely hips will make you very valuable. So will your high cheekbones. Contacts for the eyes, though, brown is pretty boring."

Sabine hugged herself, acutely aware of her body, feeling ashamed even at the mention of such a clinical assessment of her form.

"What's the matter, Sabine? Don't you want to do whatever the person you're fucking says?"

"Shut up," Sabine said, and the anger was gone. "I get it, okay?" It wasn't quite a plea, but it was close enough.

Hera put a little warmth in her voice. "So Twi'leks are a substandard culture? Are the Mandelorians, too?"

Instant fire. "We are not! We have a long history of-"

Hera held up a hand. "What you need to understand, Sabine, is that words have just as much value as credits and art and explosives. They hurt worse than any explosive, though. No culture in this galaxy is 'substandard.' The minute you think that is the minute you become prejudiced."

Sabine shook her head. "I'm not prejudiced..." she said softly, still squirming at the talk they were having.

"Oh?" Hera asked gently. "What are the primary characteristics of Sullustans?"

"Home planet is Sullust, a single biome world with a volcanic surface-"

"No," Hera corrected. "I mean of the _people_. If you meet a Sullustan, what kind of person do you expect them to be?"

Sabine shrugged. "I don't know," she said, "They have Spacefarers Academy, big manufacturing exports; I guess they'd just be a bunch of spacers."

"I see. What about Rhodians?"

"Substandard bounty hunters."

"Mon Calamari?"

"Terrible operas, poor strategists."

"Togruta?"

"Always shoeless."

"Wookies?"

"Berserkers."

"Jedi?"

"Frauds."

"Humans?"

Sabine frowned. "... How would I know? Humans don't have primary characteristics."

Hera smiled, soft and slightly sad, wordlessly telling Sabine how wrong she was. "There is a word for humans on Ryloth, the ones we've come to know since the Clone War. _Ist_. It means hateful. Humans are little more than overbred self-important and self-aggrandizing pieces of _poodoo_ who make themselves feel better by putting everyone else down."

Sabine of course bristled at the assessment, spine stiffening and brown eyes flashing with fire. "We do _not!_ "

"And Rodians aren't all terrible bounty hunters, and Mon Calamari do a lot more than direct operas, and Wookies are almost never berserkers, and the Jedi were the exact opposite of frauds. Amazing, isn't it? What prejudice will do to you?"

Sabine was brought up short, blinking as the lesson finally sank in, and slow-dawning horror spread across the girl's face as she realized how much of her world-view was colored with coded prejudice. Good. She'd think twice now before saying something – at least for a little while. Now to the second part.

"Kanan's right, you know," she said after a spell. "It was reckless to work on explosives while in deep space, and it was foolhardy to try and make a case for it. You can either spend your time here working on your projects while we handle the mission, or you wait until you've earned enough goodwill that we know you won't try to blow us up while we're in deep space."

Sabine had a little too much of her world shaken to really feel angry, but she did turn baleful eyes at Hera. "You don't trust me either?"

Hera smiled again, and just because she liked being patronizing, reached out and patted Sabine's shoulder. "It's not about trust," she said sweetly. "And until you understand that you're not allowed to work on your projects."

* * *

Two days later, Sabine was still stewing, and everyone was getting a little tired of her sour attitude. Kanan, in particular, was getting tired of arguing with her. Over said past two days, he and Sabine had ended in a shouting match four separate times. It was clear that Sabine was looking to Kanan as the authority figure of the crew, even though that was ultimately Hera. And with Sabine seeing him as the authority, she kept firing at him with everything she had.

Except for slurs.

Apparently something Hera had said to the young Mandalorian had made her stop and in her anger she didn't start using the language from when all of this started. Just another sign of Hera's natural talents as far as Kanan was concerned. What was more concerning for Kanan was the screaming match between Zeb and Sabine that morning.

They had been planet-side for over a day, refueling, getting supplies, and enjoying a little shore leave, as it were. Except for Sabine, who was still on lockdown. Both Hera and Kanan had been enforcing it, but both agreed that Sabine would need to go out and get munitions. She had the better eye and had already proven she could get better deals because of her munitions knowledge. But both Hera and Kanan had agreed that Sabine couldn't go unsupervised given that she was still under punishment. Even though Kanan had been Sabine's primary target for her anger, Kanan still volunteered to take her out into the spaceport to get what they needed.

Yet when he went to get Sabine, he had found her screaming at Zeb, who was howling back just as loud, and getting quite vicious.

Kanan had no idea what the argument had been about and he didn't care to know at this point. He'd had enough of yelling and screaming.

Instead, he had threatened to cancel the outing and Sabine had quickly bit her tongue and readily agreed she was ready.

She wasn't, not even close, but Kanan figured time off the ship at this point would give her at least a little distance, and some _actual_ distance from Zeb and whatever that howling match had been about. The Mandalorian was still red-faced and sniffling, but Kanan chose not to say anything and just walk beside her. She was too into herself and whatever that fight had been about to be paying attention to anything, so Kanan took the long way to the munitions and armory section of the spaceport. He kept an eye around their surroundings, noting the crowds, placements of local security, the patrol of stormtroopers, anything that he would normally take note of when out of the _Ghost_.

He also made sure to walk Sabine past some of the art in the spaceport, statues, murals, even some graffiti that had caught his eye the previous day when he and Zeb had been hunting down food. She never looked at it though, too deep in the whole the-galaxy-is-against-me-and-it's-all-so-unfair!-mindset that Kanan was oh-so very glad he'd outgrown years ago. And unlike Sabine, his paranoia was a fair bit more justified, but he never said so since she still hadn't opened up completely about her past.

An hour into just walking around and Sabine finally emerged from her cloud of feelings enough to start looking around and immediately offered sarcasm.

"Oh, look, scarfs. I can see why you brought me here. I can make _so_ many explosions with proper synthfabrics."

Kanan only glanced at her, completely unaffected. "Oh, we're talking now. After the last time you 'spoke', more like screeched, at me, I didn't think we'd ever communicate again."

"You'd like that wouldn't you," she growled back, already taking the lead to guide them to dealers that made things go boom. "A silent little soldier who doesn't fight back."

Kanan just shrugged, choosing not to dignify that with a response since she knew them better than that. "We'll want to cut through this alley here," he said instead. "Pedestrian throughway is going to be packed because of construction of the new Imperial Center. This will save us a lot of hassle."

Sabine ignored him, thinking she knew best and wanting some level of control after all the arguing of the past couple of days. Kanan let her, and followed along. She'd realize he was right soon enough, and it would hopefully get through her thick skull that he wasn't coming down hard on her because he wanted to, or was randomly mean, but because of knowledge and experience that he wished to guide her with. For all the shouts and screams, he _was_ honest with her in every confrontation and laid out his reasons clearly. Kanan hoped she would eventually see that.

He doubted it would happen. He wasn't that lucky, but he hoped nonetheless.

When they rounded the corner and saw the thick mass of construction, Sabine turned and _glared_ at Kanan. He only shrugged in response. The main pedestrian walk was completely dug up for a foundation of duracrete that was being poured for what looked like a massive building in scale if the area of the foundation was any indication. That left pedestrians to cross to the other side with the far narrower walkway, and required cutting through traffic. Because of the cranes and construction vehicles that were taking up space both on the ground and in the air, commuters were also getting funneled to only one lane. This made for slow going, confusion, and a lot of commuters cutting off pedestrians as they buzzed over the narrow pedestrian walkway, getting way too close to the pedestrians, who were shouting up angrily at the speeders overhead.

"Still want to take this way?" Kanan offered lightly.

Sabine let out a growl and gave a sullen glare. " _Fine_ ," she grumbled. "We'll go _your_ way."

"Only if you think that a pathetic old man like me knows the right way to go."

"Oh just _come on_ ," Sabine hissed. "Let's just _go_ and get this _over with_."

Kanan couldn't quite hold back a chuckle. At fourteen and still haven't quite finished her growth spurt, with that pout, she looked closer to a cute kid than an angsting teenager. He doubted she'd appreciate the comparison, so he kept it to himself.

In the alley was some graffiti, none of it particularly good. Not to Kanan's less-than-trained eye, in any case. Sabine didn't even give them a second glance. It was long and narrow, almost two blocks long, but that wasn't that unusual for an alley in Imperial territory. The Empire liked their buildings huge to dominate the skyline and make everyone else feel small. Since the planet had only just come under the Empire's control about three years prior, there wasn't as much sign of crushing the population yet. Lots of inconveniencing, if that traffic jam was any indication but not oppressing yet. No, it was starting in incremental ways that always sounded reasonable until someone realized just how _many_ restrictions were being placed.

One could tell where the planet was on the sliding scale of oppression based on the people, but with Sabine and her sketchbooks and how much she had talked about art and graffiti while she'd been healing, Kanan was looking at the tags and wondering if they could offer another look at where the Empire was in taking control.

He glanced at Sabine, wondering if he should ask, but given the dark cloud on her face, he doubted she'd take his question well.

Once out of the alley they were immediately in a mechanics lane, and around the corner was munitions. Sabine immediately took the lead and marched through the street, brown eyes critically eying every store front, every sign, every advertisement before picking a small, unsigned store hidden behind the green awning of a different one. Kanan followed her in, looking at the symbol frosted on the window-pane and wondering if it meant anything. Inside was dark, somewhere between poorly and moodily lit. Sabine navigated the shelves like she had been there a hundred times, fingertips tracing the edges of each shelf before grabbing whatever it was she wanted. Kanan eyed the list of purchases with approval, right up until she put her hands on a can of chemicals he didn't recognize.

"What's that?" he asked softly, trying not to start another fight.

"Bio-chemical agent," Sabine answered distantly, mind lost in her task. "Creates poison gas."

That made Kanan blink. "What kind of poison?" he asked, a hint of authority in his voice.

Petulant eyes turned to him with a pout. "The lethal kind of course," she said. "Best way to make sure there are no witnesses on an op."

Kanan plucked it out of her hand and put it back on the shelf. "No."

"No?"

"No. You agreed when you joined the crew you would do things the captain's way, and she said specifically that ops are handled as humanely as possible. Humane doesn't mean murder."

The Mandalorian looked ready to commit murder for the glare she gave him, but instead of seething or starting (another) fight, she sighed, nodding. "I did agree," she said through grit teeth. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

Kanan offered a smile. "Think of it as an extra challenge."

The responding look was baleful.

Small munitions taken care of, they went to the counter and Kanan took over. Sabine didn't yet know all the personal modifications Hera had made to her freighter, and Kanan was best equipped to purchase the charge cells and shell casings for the _Ghost_. This had happened several times since her coming on board; she gave no complaint. Arranging for pick up over delivery was a bit of a haggling nightmare, the shop owner didn't want anyone coming to the back room of their shop and Kanan and Hera had both learned the hard way to pick up fuel and especially munitions from a shop directly. The entire experience lasted perhaps an hour, Sabine made several other purchases – this time all in line with Kanan and Hera's wishes – and when they left it was with one floating crate of weapons, cleaning oils, parts, modifications, charges, bombs, tools, and other things. Not a bad haul, and a very good deal. Sabine knew her stuff.

It was going to be a long walk back to the _Ghost_ , but that was fine with everything they were able to get and at the prices they managed.

Sabine checked her wrist and zoomed in and out of the map before deciding on the best way back to the ship, rather than the roundabout way that Kanan had taken to let Sabine try and cool off after the argument with Zeb. She immediately started leading the way, but after having spent an hour in that nondescript shop, Kanan's eyes were looking around and noticing a lot of things that he wasn't liking. There was an uptick in Stormtroopers around the area, and he counted two patrols beyond the basic presence he'd noted earlier, which was _supposed_ to be thicker at the construction of the Imperial center. A glance at the sky showed smoke.

That wasn't good.

"Sabine," Kanan said, firmer than he'd ever been on this little outing. "We're going a different way." And he pushed their repulsorlift crate into a narrow side ally that was more in keeping with the historical build of the city, rather than the new imperial look.

"That way is just going to take us _longer_ ," she growled.

"It will be to our benefit. Believe me," he said, exiting to a throughway and crossing quickly to another alley.

"Why? Why should I believe you," Sabine hissed back, another argument clearly getting ready to start.

"Sabine, I've been nothing but honest with you since we came aboard. If you can't see that, you need to get over whatever funk you're in and pay attention to the _basics_ ," he hissed back, glancing back up to the sky.

"Oh, I'm _sorry_ ," the Mandalorian whined dramatically. "Clearly I can't see that you're just doing what's good for me. I need to be the good little cadet and follow orders and everything will be _magically_ okay! Aren't I just a silly little girl!"

Something about what she said buried itself into Kanan's mind, something of it was an important clue about her past, and so he held that under the surface, as he concentrated instead on their surroundings.

They exited another alley, and Kanan couldn't quite hold back the swearing. " _Kriff_ , Sabine, _get back_!"

Because down the street was some sort of fire, meaning that _someone_ decided to express their opinion of the Empire like a drunken nerf-herding _idiot_ by setting fire to an imperial recruiting station. And was also blasting at all the troops who came in to handle the fire.

A squad of tank troopers had been called in and it didn't take much for Kanan to see that the tank was ready to fire.

Sabine was still in the alley, arguments still spewing and not listening, but he turned and she must have seen something in his face, because she actually stopped for a moment, and that was enough for Kanan to push the crate down the alley. It would be safe from the concussive blast _because_ it was a crate and wouldn't be in the direct line of fire.

Beings weren't so lucky when a tank opened fire. They'd need a lot more distance than what they had.

So he grabbed Sabine, to her protest, ducked enough into the alley to not be seen, focused, and _jumped_.

Sabine squeaked, and Kanan had just enough time to get a foot on a roof for another leap when the concussive wave of the tank's fire hit him from behind. He wrapped himself around Sabine and took the brunt of it, the Force strong and dulling some of the shockwave, but he wasn't good enough with the Force to block all of it. The wave kept spreading, knocking down people below them, blowing out windows, cracking duracrete walls, and sending anything airborne crashing into one another.

It was a mess. And Kanan turned and called on the Force again. They were going to land in a food market that was already in chaos, no one would realize that it was a Jedi who was falling into their midst, more likely someone off the balconies overhead. The Force helped, as did the awning they fell through, but Kanan still landed back first into some sort of fruit stand made of local wood that quickly fell apart.

There was chaos, and Kanan struggled to hold onto consciousness, noting Sabine was already out. Probably still not back up to stamina after getting better... He needed to call Hera...

Darkness.

When he came to, they were still surrounded by panic, and there was the acrid smell of smoke in the air, so he couldn't have been out for more than a few minutes. Whole swaths of his body ached, particularly his back that took both the concussive wave and the landing. The ache rocketed down his limbs, and he took a moment to breath, acknowledge his body was telling him he was _also_ a drunken, nerf-herding _idiot_ , and let go. He needed to get moving. They couldn't stay here.

His arm was trembling, but he reached for his comm. "Spector One to Spector Two," Kanan grunted. "Spector One to Spector Two, do you read?"

There was binary cursing, and Kanan just sighed and ached. "Spector Three, we have a situation."

" _I'm here_ ," Hera said over the comm. " _Spector One, what's the situation?_ "

"We're dealing with drunken, nerf-herding idiots," he grumbled back. "Some brilliant tactician decided to set fire to the recruitment center and then fire on any Imperials that showed up," he explained, "and the Empire, in a pure and just effort to protect its citizens, brought in a tank and opened fire."

The comm was silent for a moment and Kanan just _knew_ that Zeb was cursing up a storm and Hera was dealing with him. Zeb may be mostly adjusted to being part of the crew, but there were still moments that needed ironing out.

" _Status?_ " Hera asked.

"Away," Kanan grunted. "Spector Five is unconscious-"

"-am not-" Sabine grumbled, holding her head.

"Correction, Spector Five is regaining consciousness, and our crate of well-bargained supplies is salvageable, but nowhere nearby."

Hera's voice went chilly. " _I noticed you haven't mentioned how_ you're _doing, Spector One._ "

Kanan took a breath to assess himself, and glanced at Sabine. She was getting with it, but she wasn't there yet. Did he dare say anything? Would she focus on guilt or anger?

He sighed. He had made a point of honesty with the crew. "I'll likely need medical once we're back."

" _Are we coming to get you_?"

"Not yet," Kanan replied. "I'd rather not think about what the Imperials would do with a freighter flying overhead as they try and control the area."

" _Understood. Get clear and we'll come pick you up._ "

"You got it, Spector Two. Out."

"We're running _away_ ," Sabine hissed as she sat up, staring at him strangely, like he'd grown a second head.

"I would have thought that obvious," Kanan grunted, pulling himself up to a sitting position and rolling to his knees. _Force_ everything ached, especially his back. "The Empire's going to be doing a grid search, spiraling out from that training center-"

"To contain the dissident and cast a net," Sabine interrupted, scowling at him horribly. "I know. They'll set up checkpoints at all major and minor thoroughfares and have droids patrolling alleys and rooftops. Pretty basic stuff and easy to sneak by."

Something tickled in the back of Kanan's mind, something Sabine had said before things had gone sideways.

 _I need to be the good little cadet and follow orders and everything will be_ magically _okay!_

He looked at her, a piece of her past that she had yet to divulge suddenly making sense. She'd been at the Imperial Academy. And given her natural abilities with explosives and how efficiently she was measuring micrograms before, she would likely have been pretty high in her class. Kanan couldn't quite hold back a grin. That was quite the crew they'd just brought onboard. And it suddenly made sense where a lot of the anger came from. Whatever the Empire had done to make her leave the Academy to be a bounty hunter would have to have been severe.

"Well then," Kanan nodded towards the flow of the crowd. "shall we get going?"

Sabine was still staring, eyes narrowed and something calculating, before she just scoffed and shook her head. "Not without our supplies. You pushed them into that alley. They'll be buried under some rubble, but we should still be able to salvage them."

Kanan frowned at her. "You want to go back _into_ the spiraling grid search that we just barely escaped with our lives?"

Sabine scowled at him, then gave a sly grin that just set Kanan's teeth on edge. "Given that we _did_ survive, I think we can handle it."

"No," he said firmly. "We can come back for the supplies after things have quieted down. Going back now would be asking for trouble we can't handle."

"Fine," Sabine said lightly, sly grin turning wicked. "Then we've just wasted a whole bunch of credits."

"I guess we will," Kanan agreed.

The grin disappeared; Sabine glared at him.

"Okay," he said, back throbbing. "Let's get something straight. You either accept that I'm the field leader or you don't. If you don't, then by all means, go on your little suicide run. _I'm_ going to get out of here before the Imperials find us and execute us." He'd spent over a decade knowing when to run, he wasn't about to let an upstart teenager jeopardize that. He deliberately moved down the street, sticking to the shadows.

"Ugh, not that way," Sabine said. "If you really want to get out of here you'll have to follow me."

"And why should I?" Kanan asked, allowing some attitude fill his voice. "You haven't exactly been a paragon of rational, restrained action."

"I know how they will set up a perimeter," Sabine insisted. "Spiral pattern is clockwise starting north." She pointed the opposite way Kanan had been heading.

 _Good_ , Kanan thought to himself. She really _did_ know the search patterns of the Imperials. Kanan knew them just as well, because they had been the search patterns of the Republic and he'd run a few such searches himself with Master Depa and their clones. "Well then, lead the way. Away from Imperials."

Sabine gave another frown, but together they started to follow the staggering crowds away from the explosion. Kanan took a quick glance at himself in a piece of shattered glass to get a better assessment of himself. Like Sabine, blood was trailing down his face, but more significant for him than for her. Good. That could be used.

Ducking down an alley, Sabine paused, glancing around the corner.

"Checkpoint ahead," she whispered. Already her eyes were glancing at the walls, and he could see her planning a climb up to the roofs. Well, that wasn't going to happen, not this close to the epicenter. Kanan leaned over Sabine and looked out and down the narrow street. They were stopping people who came through and searched them, but ultimately let them pass. The line wasn't even that long, as this street was residential, and most residents were off at work. Easy.

"How are your acting skills?" he asked her quietly.

"My _what_?"

"Acting skills."

"Why do I need-"

But Kanan slung an arm over her shoulder and leaned heavily into her, making her almost fall out the alley. "We're going through the checkpoint," he whispered, then let out a low groan, which wasn't all that hard because his back was still aching terribly.

"This is a _terrible_ idea," she hissed.

"No, it's a simple one," he whispered back. And while she wasn't moving, he started tugging her along, letting it look like she was barely keeping him upright.

"They're going to get pictures of us," she grunted, hefting up his dead weight and following along to the short line.

"No they're not," he hissed back. "Look at the set-up. Rushed and sloppy. If this was the Republic, they'd still be setting up and the line would be halfway down the street waiting. Those Stormtroopers are letting things slide."

"Probably for a price!" Sabine shot back quietly.

"Which is better than getting documented or caught."

Sabine sucked in a breath, but could say no more as they were in line to get through the checkpoint. Kanan went back to grunting and leaning onto Sabine as she struggled to hold up his tall, wiry frame.

They were seven minutes in line, with only two people ahead of them, and from Kanan's critical eye from what he'd remembered when he'd done this as a Padawan, they were still doing a sloppy job. Just checking pockets, barely glancing at their faces, and there wasn't even any sort of filework that he could see. No wonder Zeb liked embarrassing Stormtroopers so much. They were ridiculous compared to the troops Kanan had worked with.

The grunt he gave at thinking of the clones was a bit more realistic. The clones were good at their job alright. Including killing Jedi.

And then they were with the Stormtroopers. Kanan weakly lifted his head, letting the blood on his face show and narrowed his eyes as if he couldn't see straight. "Thank the stars," he grunted. "Please, get my daughter to safety."

In his lean on Sabine, he could feel her stiffen, though she didn't show anything, just startled at him. He knew that she was fourteen to his twenty-six, but with his mustache and beard, he looked closer to thirty, and Sabine was only just hitting her growth spurt, still on the short side, looking closer to twelve. To say nothing of the dust and blood that further obscured their features. That should provide enough of a gap. That way something as silly as trying to pass of as siblings wouldn't be needed.

The Stormtroopers were clearly not interested.

"Please," Kanan pleaded, nudging Sabine and reminding her that she was supposed to be acting.

"Daddy!" Sabine squeaked, "Please don't say such things!"

Kanan slumped forward for show, "... keep her safe..."

One of the pair of Stormtroopers gave a small curse. "Look," the other Stormtrooper said, "this is just a checkpoint. The nearest hospital is two miles that way," he jerked a thumb back to the city spreading out behind them, "and we need to stay here for the checkpoint. Just move along."

Their pockets were still checked, but Kanan never kept his ID chip on him, and it seemed Sabine didn't either. Which was easily passed off since they had clearly left wherever their "home" was in a hurry.

"Just get going."

"Thank you," Kanan gave a crooked smile. "Thank you so much."

"Come on, Daddy," Sabine tugged at him. "We need to get you to the hospital."

They continued their play until they were out of sight, then ducked into an alley.

"Where to next?" Kanan asked.

But Sabine just stared at the ground.

"Sabine, stay focused," Kanan said, still glancing everywhere for troopers or the local security. "Where to next?"

"Zeb-" Sabine started.

"What?"

"Zeb..." Sabine repeated, still staring at the ground. "Zeb and I argued this morning. It was bad."

"I noticed," he replied. "He's the one you usually get along with best. Aside from slicing battles with Chopper. And by the way, those _need_ to stop being on the _Ghost's_ systems."

"Zeb said..." her shoulders hunched and Kanan looked at her, realizing that she wasn't just stalling or misdirecting. She was trying to say something. So he listened.

"Zeb said... that you were all my new family. That you and Hera... you're like a Mom and Dad for the crew..."

Kanan shrugged. "I never claimed to be a father. Or even know how to be a father."

"But you _are_ ," Sabine whirled around, eyes shimmering even as she scowled. "You act _just like_ a father, and Hera is _just like_ a mother! You set rules, enforce them, but you're both supportive and caring of all of us! You're _too_ much like a family and it hurts, because my family is-" Sabine closed her eyes and clamped her mouth shut, grinding her teeth.

Kanan nodded. "... I never knew my parents," he said softly. "I didn't even have a family, not the way most do. The closest thing I ever had to a parent arrived when I was twelve. Six months later, she was dead." He looked away as well, the old hurt of losing Master Depa once again rising and flowing through him, and with a heavy breath, he again let go. As he had for a dozen years. "And as for the rest, well, they're gone. As far as I know, it's just me."

"They _why_?" Sabine demanded. "Why are you being a father to all of us? Why is Hera being a mother? Why are you... you and Hera... raising us?"

Kanan looked her in the eyes. Her eyes were still shimmering, and despite the blood and dust, she looked so damn _young_. Young as he'd never had the chance to be.

"Sabine," he said softly, putting a hand to her shoulder. "I've been living on my own, going from one place to another since I was thirteen. I have no clue how to be a father or parental figure or even much of a boss. I'm just trying to make sure that you don't end up going through what I did; I want you to survive."

She had so much anger in her. Anger at the Empire. Anger at her former partner. Anger at needing to heal. And Kanan remembered being angry. And scared. And constantly looking over his shoulder. It had faded as he'd realized that he was moderately safe. That as long as he kept moving and hid he was fine. Sabine would be the same. As she got comfortable, as she relaxed, the grudge would fade and the anger would continue to shift to whatever her next stage of grief would be.

There was a _reason_ she was part of the crew. Kanan and Hera had no problem directing some of her anger at the Empire to the Empire in their ops. It would help her work through parts of whatever she was dealing with. There was nothing they could do about Sabine's prior partner, but hopefully, with time, that would ease as well. She was artistic and some of the university girls Kanan had known had mentioned that art could be therapeutic.

Sabine stared at him in the eye, and Kanan let her. Let her see what ever it was that she needed. He just hoped he could actually _be_ what she needed.

Finally Sabine nodded, rubbing away her tears and smearing the grime on her face.

* * *

Sabine checked her scanner and then looked up for signs of droids. She wished she had brought her helmet with her but she could make do with just her wrist augment. With the coast clear, she dipped into another alley, this one long and dark, eyes darting everywhere. Kanan followed behind, hand rubbing his back again before she found what she was looking for.

She made a few quick gestures with her hands, silently communicating, and started scrambling up the side of the building on her left, using piping and facades as hand and foot holds. The empty window was four floors up, no problem to climb, and Kanan had proven to be... _nimble_... when the situation called for it, if that stunt from the tank was any indication. She wasn't sure she wanted to put a name to that yet, and she was still trying to come to terms with the last few days: Hera's eye-opener, the fights with Kanan, the fight with _Zeb_.

Family...

She wasn't sure if she was ready for that. Not yet.

Sabine hopped into the building, scanning quickly. No one. Good. She glanced out the window to see how Kanan was doing with the climb. He was a sturdy specimen to begin with, and that jump... but to her surprise he was only halfway up, grunting as he looked for handholds and tried to manage half the pace Sabine had set. He finally lumbered in, sweat streaking the blood on his face even more, the rich red color almost a match for Sabine's fire-themed hair. The field operative looked around before nodding in approval. "Good choice," he said. "We can lay low here for a while, until the search grid fans out; then we can trail them to the perimeter." He sat down heavily.

"What took you so long to get up here?" she asked.

He looked at her. "I'm twice your weight and almost twice your age," he answered, a little incredulous, "What did you expect?"

That... made sense, she supposed, but it didn't quiet fit the puzzle. Sabine was too young to know the Republic, but Kanan must have been an early teenager when the Clone Wars ended. How did he know so much about Republic protocols when he should have still been in school? History classes didn't talk about child warriors and as bad as the Republic was, they were the foundation of the Empire – which, in retrospective, might have explained why things were so terrible. But that didn't answer the question on how he knew these things, and that jump was _incredible_. It _might_ have been a result of the concussive blast of the tank, but if Sabine knew nothing else, it was explosives, and the probability of the blast and the force and the timing of his jump was so improbable as to be impossible, and it was niggling the back of her mind.

For now she put it away, instead watched as Kanan winced again and reached behind to rub his back.

"How bad?" she asked finally.

"Feels like one giant bruise," he answered.

Sabine stepped forward, and Kanan offered his back to her. She lifted up his shirt and blinked. From shoulder to opposite hip was one massive bruise, black and blue, roughly in the shape of a beam or pipe of some sort and thick as her hand. She remembered the awnings they were going to land in, and she winced as she realized what must have happened. She put a feather light touch right at the edge of his shoulder blade, and she heard a hiss and watched as his muscles bunched up in reaction to the sudden pain. To have this much blood lose from his vessels... how was he still standing?

"That bad, huh?" he asked.

She made a noncommittal noise and tugged his shirt back down. Once they were facing each other again he reached up and tugged at her hair, pulling it back and rubbing a thumb along a cut somewhere near her hairline.

"You should change the color," he said suddenly, leaning back. "Red, orange, and yellow don't really suit you. Well, orange maybe, but not the others."

… He dared critique her artistic expression? Even with the danger she glared at him balefully, shocked he would bring this up now.

Kanan saw her reaction and raised a hand quickly in defense. "It looks fine," he said quickly, "But it doesn't really _suit_ you, okay?"

"You think you know me that well?" she asked in a growl.

Kanan shrugged but winced as he did. "No, but I don't think angry colors should be on an angry person. You want to present yourself as the person you _want_ to be, not the person you are. That much red..." he looked away. "It brings up bad things."

… Would the guy ever make sense? Kanan went from strict father to rugged cowboy to snarky first mate and now to soulful analyst almost from one breath to the next. Zeb made sense, Chopper made sense, even _Hera_ (almost) made sense but Kanan didn't seem to have a set personality, he was just... whatever he needed to be. How could anyone be so changeable? Sabine couldn't figure him out.

The two waited for almost an hour, the Mandalorian's eyes glued to the scanner on her wrist. Probe droids passed by twice, but paid "residents" of the building no mind, and it was starting to look like it would be safe to leave.

" _Specter One_ ," Hera's voice said with a scary tone in her voice. " _Are you still alive out there?_ "

Kanan grabbed his comm. "Yes," he said, "Though I would like to go on record that I'm still not happy with those drunken, nerf-herding idiots who decided this was a good idea."

Then a new voice. " _That would be us; we're so sorry this happened..._ "

Sabine and Kanan shared a look.

" _Met the contact we were going to meet tomorrow,_ " Hera said in a light tone. " _The one who wanted strategies on how to resist the Empire_."

" _We're sorry,_ " the new voice said, " _The Empire started kidnapping people, said they 'volunteered' for training. We thought if the recruitment centers were gone..._ "

Sabine made a face. Amateurs!

" _We'll fix it though!_ " the being at the other side said quickly. " _There's this big construction zone where they're going to build a base and-_ "

"Stop talking," Kanan interrupted. "Just. Stop. Talking. Specter Two, I leave it to you to explain to them why that's such a bad idea. We're past most of the patrols; all that's left is the perimeter. Once we're clear we'll signal, and then I can punch a certain someone into understanding what an idiot they are."

" _Acknowledged Specter One. Specter Four will be waiting for you._ "

Sabine watched Kanan stand and poke his head out the window, his eyes were blue in this light, and focused.

"Hey," she asked, "Are you okay?"

"Fine," he answered, voice far away. Then he snapped to attention. "We're clear for now. Let's go." He hopped out the window and grabbed the sill, still making a face but making his way back down to ground level. Sabine followed, watching Kanan closely. What had that been all about?

On ground level they stalked out the alley and into the street. It was completely empty and, as Kanan had stated, there was no one and nothing to spot them. How did he know that without a scanner...?

In the span of fifteen minutes they were at the perimeter of the zone, and Kanan was ranging from holding his back to arcing it in weird angles to stay comfortable. Sabine had a headache the size of the local sun and wasn't looking forward to being mothered by Hera. She wasn't comfortable with people caring about her. Not after everything that had happened before coming here. Shaking her head, she pushed aside and took point. Forces were thicker here, of course, but the lack of discipline was also obvious when she saw no less than four having a conversation, looking at each other instead of scanning the streets. Bucketheads were so predictable.

"I guess the Republic was better about this, too?" she asked in a low voice as they crept around a corner.

"They were better about a lot of things," Kanan answered softly. "Not the least of which was helping people in need."

Sabine shrugged. The next street had fewer stormtroopers, and they slipped by unnoticed. Four blocks away they found Zeb and Chopper, and inside an hour they were back on the _Ghost_. In the cargo bay a Rhodian, blue-green skin, with four dark skinned humans and a Sullustan, were there and bowing repeatedly in apology once he saw the state of Sabine and Kanan. "We had no idea you were here! We just wanted to get a head start!"

"And ruin any chances of getting people over to your side," Kanan quipped, pulling off his shoulder guard and tugging at his shirt. "We get it. Next time wait for the professionals. As it is you've mucked everything up so much we might not even be able to help."

The Rhodian was aghast at the idea, quickly turning to his compatriots as Kanan finally got his sweater and dark turtleneck off. Zeb and Hera made faces at the hematoma, but Sabine blinked rapidly as she saw how much thinner the injury was. How had _that_ happened? Kanan saw her face and shook his head, green eyes darting to the party of would-be revolutionaries. Space, Sabine was going to _always_ wear her helmet after this to keep him from reading her so much.

Hera was already at Kanan's side with the first aid kit, pulling out some sort of cream or salve and starting to rub it into Kanan's huge bruise.

It was strangely intimate, watching Hera being so gentle and caring to Kanan, who stoically narrowed his eyes against obvious pain as she pressed the salve into the darkest areas of the bruise. For the briefest of moments, Sabine remembered something similar with her own parents, back in the dustiest corners of her memories, and she had to look away quickly.

The drunken nerf-herding idiots were still looking around awkwardly, Kanan's obvious injuries making them uncomfortable with the stupid stunt they pulled and Sabine had had enough.

She stormed over to them, ready to rip them to shreds with just words, tell them how stupid, unprepared and idiotic they were, and how they didn't know a _thing_ , and she was going to browbeat them into submission for how the day had gone.

The fact that Kanan had hissed in pain behind her had nothing to do with why she was about to verbally eviscerate these morons.

"Spector Five," Kanan said firmly.

Anger flared even _further_ in her, and she whirled around. He was _not_ going to scold her when she had _every right_ to be pissed off. " _What_?" she demanded.

"You get the shower first."

Anger stuttered and flailed before dropping away. "What?"

"I need time for the salve to do its work. Shower will just wash it off. You go first. Get cleaned up. We'll look at the cut in your hair after you're clean."

She would not blush, she would not blush, she would not blush...!

"Fine," she grumbled, and headed to the refresher. Fresh clothes had been set out for both her and Kanan – Hera's doing no doubt, and Sabine squirmed at the feeling that filled her chest. She started taking her armor off and caught a glance at herself in the mirror. Most of the smoke and ash had been shaken out of her hair, and she looked at herself for a long, long time.

Fire.

As soon as she had been well enough after... _after_ , she had set her hair on fire: yellow roots to red tips, to symbolize the explosion that had just happened in her life. The Academy had blown up in her face, her best friend and partner Ketsu had blown up in her face, her _family_ had blown up in her face, and she had no other way to express the churning emotions inside her. Even now, crew of the _Ghost_ , and she was waiting for it to all blow up again, waited for it all to fall apart, for Zeb or Hera to betray her even as she desperately wanted to be trusted and seen as asset. Every muscle in her body was taught with tension, waiting for the next explosion, and she dreaded the idea of relaxing for even one second.

If she did, then she would see that Zeb loved punching Imperials, and that Chopper was funny when he wanted to be, that Hera was inspirational and organized and tough as nails, that Kanan was...

But she had already seen it. Experienced it. They were everything she had ever wanted, and that scared her down to her bones. She wasn't ready yet, wasn't ready for a full-time family.

She frowned at her reflection, her hair. She was still on fire, the colors weren't going to change over night, but maybe Kanan was right: maybe she could look like she wanted to be instead of what she was. Orange tips? But not now. Later. When she was ready.

For now, she had a sonic shower to take. It wasn't until later that she would realize that Kanan had given her first dibs as a way to cool off. That made her growl.

* * *

Kanan hissed again as Hera rubbed the salve into another sensitive area, where he was almost certain there was bruising on the bone. Hera barely flinched at his pain, knowing that working the salve in was more important. "Bone bruise?" she asked softly in his ear once she was past the tender area.

"Probably," he whispered back. "It _was_ cracked."

She nodded, knowing that the Force was likely helping him to heal.

"So," Kanan turned his head to the drunken nerf-herding idiots who had ruined the day. "You decided that acting like terrorists was a good idea. Stunningly brilliant."

The Rhodian was apologetic, worrying his hands and nodding his head. "We were _trying_ to fix a problem!"

"And two of our own paid a _price_ for it!" Zeb roared, his anger vibrating in his tall, intimidating form.

"It's not like we _knew_ -"

"Do you not _see_ the blood-"

It was going to devolve into an argument and Kanan really didn't want to deal with this at the moment. He was tired and wanted some quality time with his pillow so that he could focus on other things. Like sleep. Or getting out of here, whichever was higher priority.

"Specter Four," Hera said with the complete authority she had as captain. "Take watch."

"But they-"

" _Now_ ," she insisted.

" _Fine,_ " he growled, glaring at the drunken, nerf-herding idiots. "Let me know when I can stuff them out the airlock."

Technically they'd have to be in space for that, but Kanan couldn't quite keep down the grin.

The Rhodian and his bunch were still simpering after Zeb's frontal assault, so both Kanan and Hera let them have their moment to sulk.

"All done, Spector One," Hera said, capping the salve and putting it away. "Now, the head wound." She pulled out the tail of his hair and started carding her hands through the dusty, sweaty mess, slowly examining and looking between the strands. Kanan's view got more and more obscured as she kept moving his hair, getting it into his face, and she herself was in his line of view as she leaned forward and looked closely. He enjoyed the view where he could.

The Rhodian and friends seemed to calm down in the quiet as Hera focused on inspecting his head. It was probably why she was taking so long going through it, giving them time to settle after the loud and angry entrance and what had likely been hours of arguing while he and Sabine slowly worked their way to Zeb and the _Phantom_.

"Look," the Rhodian said, clearly the leader of this little band of drunken, nerf-herding idiots, "Next time-"

Kanan held up his hand. "Stop talking. Just _stop_ talking." Then he hissed as Hera pulled hair gently apart over the actual cut or gash or whatever it was. A bacta patch was applied, and Hera pulled out a bandage to hold it in place.

"Now," Hera said lightly, turning and facing the small band of revolutionaries full on. "We need to discuss what happened today. And what went wrong."

The Rhodian immediately smiled and nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! So that next time-"

" _Stop_ talking," Kanan repeated, his eyes narrowed. "This will just go faster if you shut up and _listen_. Please save all questions for the end of class. There will be an exam on this later."

Hera crossed her arms, stance firm, hip by his shoulder. "I understand that you don't like what the Empire is doing. I understand that you are watching a progressive slide into oppression. I understand the desire to fight back any way you can. But randomly blowing up what you don't like doesn't build support. It doesn't get people on your side. It doesn't make people question what they see as a temporary inconvenience. All it does is paint yourself as a terrorist."

One of the dark-skinned humans was shaking her head. "But we're _not_! We're just-"

"Saving any and all questions for the end of class," Kanan interrupted. "Remember there _is_ an exam on this later."

Hera kept talking after that, with Kanan only butting in to remind the audience to not interrupt teacher. This was always Hera's job. To inspire. He was only just the muscle. Though now Zeb was fitting that job fairly well. Kanan needed to rethink what his place was on the team. Especially with Sabine. He couldn't keep being the "muscle" with Zeb and he certainly couldn't be the "muscle" with Sabine.

Something to meditate on later.

For now, though, listening to Hera on a roll was a treat. It always was. An honor really, that this ragtag bunch of drunken, nerf-herding idiots didn't realize was a privilege to have. Of course Kanan was biased and he knew it. What Hera gave them was a seminar on how to build grass-roots support and work the way up to get public support for at least _thinking_ and _then_ fighting back against the oppressions of the Empire.

Hera finally wound down to a close, and it was clear the information dump was still shaking their skulls loose of some misconceptions and theories. They were finally _thinking_ , which was what they _should_ have been doing in the first place.

Kanan let out a long controlled breath, releasing the frustration that was still clinging to him. He reminded himself that the day wasn't a total bust and that he seemed to have made some level of progress with connecting with Sabine. Whether that would pan out or not remained to be seen. But Kanan had a good feeling.

The silence settled around them, Hera's master's class absorbing.

Then Kanan called out the drunken, nerf-herding idiots for being drunken, nerf-herding idiots.

"And so, class," he said lightly still stretching to prevent getting too stiff, "you can see how the public is going to take any messages from you now, right?"

The Sullustran's face was distraught and the human who had spoken before was teary-eyed.

The Rhodian was aghast. "They'll side with the Empire after today!"

"Nobody understood what taking out the recruiting center was about!"

"The Empire is going to spin this their way! They're already controlling the media about this!"

All five of them turned desperately to Hera.

" _What are we going to do?!_ "

Hera offered a dark smile. "That's what you should have asked before you started all this. The better question now is: how are you going to fix it?"

The Rhodian was tugging at one of his antennae, a nervous habit perhaps. He turned to say something in Huttese, and a rapid conversation was engaged between him and the others. Hera leaned in. "Can you understand them?"

"It's a little fast, but I follow. You?"

Hera didn't answer, frowning and listening very hard.

"It's decided!" the Rhodian said. "We're gong to help you get off planet."

Kanan was about to call the idea ridiculous, Hera's ship was more than able to slip passed any pursuit from the blown recruitment centers, but the Twi'lek captain squeezed his shoulders as a signal to say nothing. He looked up at her as her face turned shrewd. "You mean about the blockade they set up?" she asked. ...Blockade? For one recruitment center? Stars, did they bomb more than just one? _Nerf-herding idiots!_ How many people had they lost to this?

"What's your plan?" Hera asked.

"And this, is your final exam," Kanan said quietly, but firmly.

"I thought you were kidding about the test!"

"No," Kanan stood stiffly, rolling his shoulders and ignoring the pain in his back as he gazed at them intensely. "Your final exam will continue for the rest of your lives. There is no practice run against the Empire. You either survive or you die. You can't turn back and redo it. You can't ask teacher a question while taking the test. You have to take what Hera has taught you and _use_ it. And if you don't use it well, the Empire will find you, take you in, and you _don't_ want that to happen. Study hard."

Kanan glanced to Hera and she nodded, a glint of approval in her eyes. Kanan nodded back and left. He was as familiar as Hera was with the sounds of the ship, and he knew that Sabine had finished with her shower ten minutes ago. So he grabbed the medkit and painfully climbed up out of the cargo bay, to the hall and Sabine's door. He knocked politely.

Sabine opened the door, looking much cleaner, in sleep pants and shirt. She had been stretching, it seemed, as her floor was cleared of sketches and paint supplies that she used in her lateral filing system.

She looked at him, surprised, "Ka-"

"Spector Five," he said, "let's look at the cut."

She pouted. "They're in the cargo bay, there's no way-"

"Never," Kanan said gently, "let your guard down when unknowns have boarded the ship. That's just basic precautions." He gave a rougish grin. "Besides, we both agree that they're a bunch of drunken, nerf-herding idiots, so why take the risk they'd bumble into something."

"Point," she said tiredly.

"Come on, your room is a mess, even with the space for stretching. I'll patch you up in the common room."

"Sure," Sabine said, though she was already reaching an arm up to grab the elbow and pull for a stretch.

* * *

Sabine felt better after the sonic shower, and her muscles were easing with every stretch; it was almost like the day hadn't happened – until she saw Kanan, still sooty and ashen, asking to check out the cut on her forehead. Everything rushed back to her, but the intensity of the emotion was muted. Kanan had listened to her during their escape, he had watched her back, and distance had given her the perspective to see that.

She sat on one of the stools as Kanan opened up the medkit. There was a grimace on his face as he moved around; was he still in pain from the fall? Then she remembered the noticeable thinness when they had made it back to the _Ghost_ compared to when she had first seen the damage. The image also brought up the other inconsistencies that had happened over the course of their escape. There had been other things as well, little moments that were nothing – except now her mind brought them up: comments about being the same as Zeb, hints that the Empire wanted him dead, an acute spacial awareness of where people were or danger approaching. Something was building in her mind, a conclusion she was drawing to...

And then it all scattered away as a thumb pressed into her forehead and sent a hiss of pain across her senses.

"Sorry," Kanan mumbled, applying pressure and then sticking a patch on the cut.

Sabine had a moment where she actually considered being angry, but decided it wasn't worth the effort and let it go. She saw Kanan smile almost immediately after the decision, approval crossing his face.

"Good to see you can be mature when you want to," he said smoothly, grabbing another stool and sitting on it, legs spread apart and elbows resting on his knees. Sabine blinked. How had he known that...? "Anything you want to say before debriefing with Spector Two?" he asked. "Questions or concerns?"

Sabine opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn't find the right words to articulate her thoughts.

Kanan read her face (she assumed he did), because the lazy grin fell and a more serious look spread across his features.

"You're pretty bright," he said suddenly. "You notice a lot of small details, and an Academy protégé like you knows how to put pieces together. What's on your mind?"

Put that way, Sabine blinked. Had she been that obvious? But then, Kanan never said much about himself up to this point, and to offer her the chance to ask a question was too big an opportunity to pass this up, and she asked the first thing that came to mind: "How did we survive the tank explosion? The odds of that exact outcome with the payload and the method of delivery and the height... how did that happen?"

"... Luck?" Kanan asked, a resigned note in his voice.

"I don't believe in luck," Sabine answered.

"Oh, luck exists," Kanan said, "But only one kind: bad." He cupped his chin in his hand. This was the most serious she had ever seen him off the field. "It likes hitting me over the head to remind me it I'm its favorite."

… Anthropomorphizing luck? That was a new one for Sabine.

Kanan breathed in audibly through his nose, holding the air in his chest before exhaling. "Where do I start?" he mumbled to himself, taking his hand and rubbing it down his face before fixing his eyes on her. They were green in this light, with an intensity that Sabine had never seen before. "Zeb and I have a lot in common," he said softly. "We're both the last of our kind."

"But you're a human."

"Yes."

"Humans are the most populous species in the galaxy, comprising of almost sixty percent of the core and fifty-three percent of the-"

Kanan held up a hand. "I know the numbers," he said. "I had an education, too. Much deeper than yours, broader, more challenging, and like nothing you could even imagine. It's a little rusty, because it was ended abruptly when I was thirteen: one day before we were declared an Empire." He didn't say anything after that, gaze boring into her, somehow letting her know that she had enough pieces to the puzzle.

Sabine frowned, wondering what was so special about Empire Day – no the day before Empire Day. That was the end of the Clone Wars, the Separatists were barely a ghost of themselves, the leaders all surrendering and the clone troopers were ordered to-

Sabine sucked in a breath as everything fell into place.

 _Jedi_.

The Jedi that had attacked then-Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, disfiguring him and making a bid for the seat of government. The plot included the entire High Council, and as the investigation had gone on there had been so many scandals – fraud, false religion, sleight of hand, manipulation, rumors they had started the Clone Wars to solidify their power – so many that Order Sixty-Six was signed by Palpatine himself. Sabine remembered the ten-year anniversary, the entire academy watched the recordings iterating the Jedi betrayal. _Kanan_ was a... No, the Jedi were wiped out! Hunted down and exterminated! "But the day before Empire Day is when-"

"I lost _everything_."

"But, but that means you're a... a..." she gestured vaguely.

He gave an odd smile, part pained, part proud. "I'm a traitor to the Empire for even existing."

He was a traitor to the Empire, he was part of the plot to eliminate Palpatine and take over the Republic... what secrets did he know? At thirteen, did he even know what the Jedi were planning? But wait... if the Force was a hoax then how did they survive the blast unless... Sabine felt like her entire world-view was shifting again, like it had when Hera had made her see her own prejudice. If the stories about the Force were lies, then the conspiracy... the betrayal...

It suddenly made so much sense. How they had survived the canon blast, how he always seemed to have a good sense of everything around him. Possibly even how they healed so fast for all she knew. It wasn't like there were courses on how the Force worked. In fact, outside of mentioning they were traitors, the Jedi and the Force were never mentioned in any of her texts. The most she had ever learned of the Jedi came from stories of her parents, and even those were from generations back.

"But how- you're-" she shut her mouth and glared at him. She would _not_ be a bumbling idiot with her questions. She would think before asking anything. She went through the events of the day, trying to look at it fresh with this new information. So that bizarre jump that got them away from the canon made sense now. Looking back, she hadn't even realized how far away they were from the blast when she woke up. Not even the concussive wave could have knocked them that far from their original start point. She hadn't noticed because they were both more concerned with getting away. Lots of little things, how he knew where to go, how he would have known the Republic standards-

"You were a child warrior," she said, eyes wide and looking at him again in this new light. "You'd have already been on the battlefield for years by now." No wonder he knew tactics so well and could come up with such unorthodox plans.

"Not quite. I only served in the war for six months. But yes, I've been training for battle and tactics and much, much more, since I could form words."

A deeper education indeed.

"Wait, so why don't you do that kind of stuff more often? You got us away from the blast before it could turn our insides to white butterflies. Why not just... keep going?"

Kanan shook his head sadly, looking down to the floor. "That wouldn't be hiding, would it?"

That made no sense. "Hiding? But you're _fighting_ the Empire! You and Hera and Zeb and Chopper, you all push back, fight back! You could do so much more if you-"

Kanan looked up, eyes narrowed and Sabine shut her mouth, something heavy on his bloody, dusty face making her pause.

"Spector Five," he said softly, " _think_. What would happen if the Empire kept getting fought by someone like me?"

"But you _are_ fighting-"

"No, someone who isn't hiding like I am. Think of all the others like me that have been seen on the HoloNet. What has happened?"

Sabine's eyes widened. "They were hunted down and captured."

"Because they didn't hide who they were. Because they were blatant in what they did when they fought. And you're a sucker if you think they were just 'captured.' "

"And if you did that-" he would die.

"And if I did that, you would all die with me. Because the Empire is _anything_ but forgiving. And I don't want any of you to die. Not because of me."

"So... you doing that thing you did back when the tank fired..."

"Was dire circumstances that was more instinct than thought," Kanan said. He smiled ruefully. "Like I said. Bad luck likes to remind itself that I'm a favorite."

"Wait, is it sentient?"

"And that, Spector Five, requires philosophy, that I don't think you're quite ready for. We can go into details of what I can and most especially, _can't_ do at a different time when there aren't unknowns onboard."

She had so many questions. Sabine almost felt like she was back at the Academy, absorbing every book or datapad she could get her hands on, excitedly learning as every new course presented new things she'd never known about before. And it was all about things that the Empire didn't allow anyone to know.

Kanan quickly glanced around, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Sabine, you realize that this is a big part of me?"

"Of course!" she said. She needed time. Make a list of questions. Did Zeb know? Hera obviously did and so did Chopper, those three had been together the longest. This was such an amazing thing to learn about!

"Can I trust you with it?"

Sabine's mind skittered to a halt. Oh. Her eyes should _not_ be watering at this. The past few days, butting heads, rules and procedures, she wondered if any of them trusted her, for all that they had brought her onboard as crew. She had argued that that they didn't trust her judgement, didn't trust her capabilities.

But this...

This wasn't Kanan trusting her. This was him having _faith_ in her.

Also This...

This was...

This was all she had ever wanted.

She sniffed and she would claim to her death that it was dust in her nose from the long day. "Yes," she said softly, looking him in the eye and hoping he knew just how much she _meant_ it. "I _promise_. _No one_ will know from me."

Kanan's smile was soft and warm. "Good. Now, is there anywhere else you were hurt we need to look at?" he asked, gesturing to the medkit again.

Sabine gave her own smile. "Not before you take a shower. You're still a mess."

"Whatever you want, Spector Five."

 **The End**

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** We didn't think our beta would get back to us in time, but here it is: a fic celebrating the anticipation of Season 3 and the upcoming Sabine Show! Also Kanan, because we just can't seem to take our focus off of him.

Honestly there isn't much to say about this fic on the surface, it's more a slice-of-life than an actual fic. It's just a story of Kanan and Sabine getting to know each other in the middle of Sabine's teen-angst years. In point of fact the impetus was Mirror having an image (no pun intended) in her head about Kanan with his arms wrapped around Ezra (obviously that was changed). We've written fics like this before - Coalesced Matter - so we thought it would be different to switch with Sabine.

But of course we can't leave it there, Hera has to get her two cents in, and Chopper must make a statement somewhere. Zeb was the odd one out, but it wasn't his fic to begin with.

Sabine, like the show, changes her hair as the mood dictates, and Kanan isn't above the occasional facial hair aesthetic, too (at least we figured he would). Everything else is pretty straightforward.

Here's hoping for the Season Opener next week. The shrieking you hear every time Kanan is on screen is us wigging out at how awesome he is just standing and looking at something. Or not looking as the case may be.


End file.
